


Invincible

by NoHolds



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Coping, LaFerry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-25 17:25:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2630093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHolds/pseuds/NoHolds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perry confronts the realities of the world and finds them very unforgiving, indeed.</p><p>"I always sort of thought I was invincible.</p><p>When you’re a kid, bad things can’t touch you.</p><p>I knew bad things happened, of course- the news is nothing but a macabre gag reel of the week’s most Great and Terrible things.</p><p>But I never thought those terrible things would happen. Not to me, at least..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I always sort of thought I was invincible.

When you’re a kid, bad things can’t touch you.

I knew bad things happened, of course- the news is nothing but a macabre gag reel of the week’s most Great and Terrible things.

But I never thought those terrible things _would_ happen. Not to me, at least.

Of course murders and muggings and car crashes happened, but they happened to _other people._ Of course kidnappings and cancer happened, but they happened far away, not to me or my loved ones.

The very idea of something terrible happening to me was absurd, laughable. Facing down danger was scary, but it felt safe because, somewhere at the back of my mind, I always thought I was invincible.

Even when girls started disappearing- well, it wasn’t anyone I knew.

I saw them around campus, but it wasn’t anyone I cared about, and the kidnappings never really sunk in because, well, they were _party_ girls, and things _happened_ at parties, and I was smart and my friends were smart and nothing _bad_ ever happens to _me,_ how could it?

So when Laura and La Fontaine went to the library I was worried, but I wasn’t- I wasn’t _that_ worried, because I kind of _knew_ they’d get out of it, still had that childish feeling of invulnerability.

And when we captured Carmilla I was scared but I wasn’t all that anxious because I still thought, naively, _stupidly,_ that bad things didn’t happen to me, _couldn’t_ happen to me because that would be ridiculous, because _what are the odds?_

 

And then they-

And then they took La Fontaine.

My best friend, the only person I’ve always trusted, and suddenly _no one_ was safe.

Suddenly, the reality of the world came crashing down, and Carmilla’s apathy, her obnoxious air of teenage fatalism made _sense_ because bad things _do_ happen, and they can happen to anyone, even you, even people you love.

I felt like someone had torn all the sanity from the world. Suddenly, there was no order to things, and no one was safe, and life didn’t make _sense_ anymore, because I could die, and I could be taken, and so could Laura, and so could Carmilla, and La Fontaine could be dead right now and-

And how do you _live,_ in a world like that? There’s no _sense_ to a world like that, where anyone can be hurt and the monsters under your bed are real, and you can’t tell anyone “It’s okay, it was just a bad dream, it wasn’t real” because it _could be._

I was suddenly, for the first time in my life, _vulnerable._ The reality that I could be hurt sunk in, and everything was _terrifying_ and how do you even leave your _room_ when the world is cruel and senseless and bad things happen for no good reason and there’s no _pattern_ to any of it?

And now, living in this cruel, senseless world, the invulnerability of others seems so _childish._

I can practically _smell_ it on Laura, Laura who still thinks that everything will turn out Okay and we’ll save the world if we just _give it our best,_ and Carmilla’s gloomy countenance doesn’t grate so much anymore because how could anyone be cheery when they wake up to a world where best friends get kidnapped by ancient evils?

But I still try. We all have our coping mechanisms, the things we can get lost in and reclaim the shadows of our immortality, and my hands are bleach-chapped and my room smells like burnt dough, but it is worth it to feel _safe_ again, even for a little while.

And even though-

Even though La Fontaine is gone, and the last conversation we had was a fight, and no just world would rip someone you loved so much away after a fight like that, I try to cope.

Because there are still people with that immortality, those people who live in a world that makes sense, where optimism isn’t a shout in the void, and God knows that Laura is doomed to fail, but I’ll help her along the way because she still _thinks_ that we might win and that unrelenting optimism is like opium to me.

I can see why Carmilla’s so smitten, trailing after the stardust of Laura’s invincibility like a lost puppy, and I can’t help but tag along, caught up in the echoes of immortality.

 


	2. Chapter 2

I watch it drain out of her.

Like air from balloon, I watch Laura’s invincibility pour from her skin, until all that is left is this empty, shell of a girl.

Her coping mechanism turns out to be the damn webcamera, the webcamera that started all of this months ago, but the words she says to it are hollow, now.

The steadfast determination, the childlike enthusiasm, the seemingly impenetrable armor of “It’ll turn out alright” is gone, and to hear her speak without that, to hear her talk with a numb tongue-

It destroys the last vestiges of my belief that there is good in the world.

I never thought she would break, but here she is, the invincible Laura Hollis, the indomitably optimistic Laura Hollis, and she is not _crying._ She is just hollow, spitting hollow words, as if anyone at home is still watching.

La Fontaine murmurs something inconsequential, and my stomach, knots, but Laura just stands, this peculiar look on her face.

Laura is no longer exited, or enthusiastic, but the determination is still there, and there is _steel_ in her eyes, and this is a Laura that has accepted how unfair the world is and she is going to fight _anyway,_ and-

And I find myself abandoning the shell of self-pity I have been wearing like armor since La Fontaine was taken, and I find myself following Laura out the door.

Whatever happens from here, there is no more that the world can take from Laura, and she knows it, and the empty space left behind by her invincibility has been filled with _fire._

The dean is a centuries-old vampire with an unspeakably old evil on her side, and I _fear_ for her.

Because this tiny, 5-foot girl is filled head-to-toe with steel and fire. And she has no _reason_ not to fight, because she has nothing left to lose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't think I'd update, but in light of the events of episode 34, I thought a note on Laura's state of mind was warranted.


	3. Chapter 3

I was wrong.

I was so, so wrong.

There is always more you can lose.


	4. Chapter 4

Maybe-

Maybe sometimes things _do_ turn out the way they should.

Maybe sometimes people  _do_ get their storybook endings.

Maybe Laura gets a happily ever after.

But I-

Well, even if I still believed in fairy tails, I'm still waiting for mine.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote a Carmilla fanfiction I guess. Leave Kudos or a comment if you want, or message me here if you want.
> 
> You can also read it on Tumblr- http://noholds-spacebard.tumblr.com/post/102845516513/perry-invincible


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